Saint Anthony Reading
1519
Medium
Engraving
Dimensions
Sheet: 3 3/4 × 5 9/16 in. (9.5 × 14.1 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The George Khuner Collection, Gift of Mrs. George Khuner, 1968
Accession Number
68.793.44
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the intimate world of Albrecht Dür *Saint Anthony Reading*, a masterful engraving from 1519 now housed in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department. Measuring just 3 3/4 × 5 9/16 inches, this small-scale print captures the revered Desert Father, Saint Anthony, absorbed in quiet contemplation with an open book, surrounded by humble buildings that evoke a serene, everyday piety. Dürer, a towering figure of the Northern Renaissance, revolutionized printmaking with his unparalleled engraving technique. Using a burin to incise fine lines into copper plates, he achie...
About the Artist
Albrecht Dürer · 1471–1528
Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) stands as the preeminent figure of the Northern Renaissance and arguably the most influential artist in the history of printmaking. Born in Nuremberg on May 21, 1471, and dying in the same city on April 6, 1528, Dürer revolutionized the status of the artist in Northern Europe, transforming printmaking from a commercial craft into an independent fine art and establishing ...